CVE-2026-98137 ntfs: treat any nonzero dio zero-range return as an error
A flaw in the Linux kernel NTFS driver allows attackers to read stale on-disk data due to ignored zeroing errors during file allocation.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-98137?
CVE-2026-98137 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 25 Sep 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ntfs: treat any nonzero dio zero-range return as an error
ntfs_dio_zero_range() returns either 0 or a negative errno from blkdev_issue_zeroout(); it never returns a positive value. The zeroing failure check in ntfs_attr_fallocate() therefore never fired, so a failed zeroing operation was silently ignored: the loop kept going, the newly allocated clusters were folded into initialized_size and the write could succeed leaving stale on-disk data.
Treat any nonzero return as an error and abort the allocation.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98137?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2026-98137?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2026-98137 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98137 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98137, GHSA-pm9x-9ffx-jrqj, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98137.